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Digital representations of the real world : how to capture, model, and render visual reality
Magnor M., Grau O., Sorkine-Hornung O., Theobalt C., A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA, 2015. 455 pp. Type: Book (978-1-482243-81-9)
Date Reviewed: Feb 2 2016

Developing computer graphic models based on representations of reality can be challenging. For example, rendering a 3D scene containing an educational model of a human skeleton would need a high level of accuracy. Before starting the programming and rendering of this type of computer graphics, people who develop them should answer some key technical questions: How realistic do I want this model to be? Do I need global or local illumination? Do I need shadows? What kind of electronic sensors and algorithms can I use to capture visual information from a real object and improve the resulting graphical model? Developing and rendering photorealistic graphic scenes can also be challenging for regular computers, because they need to compute many math calculations, such as lighting, textures, object transformations, and so on. This is especially critical if those graphics will be used in (quasi) real time, such as in video games.

This interesting book covers an introduction to most of the above techniques and beyond. It touches upon computer graphics-related topics such as image and video processing, visual sensor technologies, 3D graphics modeling, rendering, and animation techniques. Many of the chapters include mathematical expressions that support the understanding of concepts, algorithms, and applications in computer graphics described in those chapters. The editors organized the 23 chapters well in five parts: “Acquiring the Real World,” “Reconstruction – Data Processing Techniques,” “Modeling Reality,” “Authentic Rendering, Display and Perception,” and “Applications.”

Most of the chapters are short, about eight to ten pages, which may be useful as short readings for computer science students and for furthering class discussions. Some of the chapters provide a basic introduction to a topic, such as number 21 (“Television and Live Broadcasting”). The book is easy to read in part because it was printed using LaTeX’s nice typesetting capabilities. The chapter figures were printed in color. This is a must for this type of technical book and for understanding many of the computer graphics concepts explained in the chapters.

Most of the chapters will be useful as a supporting introduction to computer graphics, digital image processing, video game development, and related courses. The book will definitively serve researchers and practitioners from a number of areas of computer graphics.

Reviewer:  Miguel A. Garcia-Ruiz Review #: CR144143 (1605-0304)
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Three-Dimensional Graphics And Realism (I.3.7 )
 
 
Applications (I.3.8 )
 
 
Digitization and Image Capture (I.4.1 )
 
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